Ennui
by Jewcika
Summary: Clyde was, by nature, a very apathetic person. Craig always knew how to defy that apathy. CraigClyde. Oneshot.


_I'm reposting some stories from an abandoned chaptered oneshot collection I took down, with a little tweeking here and there. This was my favorite from those, for sure. Written pre-Pandemic, back when Craig wasn't an apathetic little bastard._

00

Clyde was, by nature, a very apathetic person. Throughout the day, he found little that caught his attention. It was hard to be amused by much for him. When he had first started high school, he had grown fond of going to parties. The alcohol would drive him to do things that would, at the moment, seem quite exciting. After ninth grade dragged on and he had slept with a number of girls in their grade, or at least as many drunk girls as a town like South Park could provide, he grew bored of that too.

Maybe it was the environment he lived in. After all, seventeen years of seeing the same landscape, socializing with the same people, and inhabiting the same mountain town could bore anybody to death. The monotony was something that weighed heavily on his everyday life, his only consolation being the fact that he'd probably be free of this podunk town once he was out of high school. Even though there were still the occasional threats to the town, the population of South Park all became less awed by the events that occurred as the years went by. In fact, it was probably one of the factors that had robbed Clyde of his ability to be surprised by much.

Craig Tucker, however, never ceased to come up with something unexpected to pique Clyde's curiosity. Craig was often the willing victim of his psychological exploits in an effort to understand why people, particularly Craig, did what they did. Psychology, as a whole, was one of the few things that managed to spark his attention. This was perhaps for the best, since Craig was generally an extrovert, highly competitive, and needed to be vocal in his anger when things didn't go his way; Clyde usually ended up playing counselor in these cases. The fact that Craig was amused by so much as the shape a patch of grass formed was also something Clyde enjoyed inquiring about.

Last summer, right after their sophomore year had ended, Craig had crawled in through his window and landed on the ground with a thud (he claimed it was better than dealing with parents at the door). It was the third time he had dropped in on him that day, and Clyde was ready to give more crisis management to the raven-haired boy. After Craig's dramatic entrance, he picked himself up off the floor and gave a 'tada!' motion with his arms, a pleased look on his face. "Guess whaaat?"

Clyde paused the movie he was watching and raised an eyebrow, wondering how Craig could have become so hideously happy in the span of two hours. "Stripe ate one of your sister's shirts again?"

"No! Well, yes, but that's not it!" A pause. "I'm gay!"

He allowed an amused snort to escape him, letting himself digest the information. "Really?'

"Yup!"

"...huh."

After that, Clyde attempted to have a deep and meaningful discussion about Craig's role in society and how he had formed his conclusion, as well as inquiring about why he decided to deliver the news in such a flamboyant manner. Apparently, Craig had been overcome with one of his capricious mood swings upon having finally told himself he was gay out loud, realizing the possibilities of this development. These, of course, consisting of girls thinking he was "totally bad-ass and cool," taking him on shopping trips and buying lunch for him at the mall. Clyde was promptly told to shut up when he pointed out that gay guys are usually _not_ considered bad-ass and that it was usually boys who pay for lunch anyways. As for trying to get Craig's thoughts on the unfair discrimination from society towards homosexuals, the only input the other boy provided was "I like dick, and if people don't like me liking dick then they can kiss my ass."

Life passed by as it normally did after that. Surprisingly enough, Craig somehow managed to convince Red and Anne to hang out with him and even buy lunch every now and then. He appeared to enjoy the new company, even if he always complained about the fact that they kept trying to put eyeliner on him and to get him into ball-constricting jeans. Clyde would sometimes be dragged along without much complaint on his part, since he never had anything else of interest to do. Sometimes, Red or Anne would nudge Craig in the side and giggle while the latter of the three would scowl at the giggling party. Clyde would roll his eyes and assume, from their behavior, that either Red or Anne had a childish crush on him. The prospect didn't sit well with him for some reason, so he tended to ignore it.

One night during their junior year, Clyde's phone rang. He took one look at the caller ID and put Craig on speakerphone.

"Dude, I'm working on that paper for biology class. I can't talk right now."

"Not even for a few minutes? I kind of really have to tell you something."

Clyde sighed, glancing from the phone to his computer screen. "...fine, but make it quick."

He tried paying attention to both Craig and his research paper, he really did, but eventually realized that his computer screen was his focus while Craig's words were nothing but noise in the background. He stopped typing and stared hard at his phone, realizing Craig had gone quiet at some point. "Craig? You there?"

"Duh. I-I'm waiting for you to say something! I thought you had - had, you know. Hung up on me or - or something."

The brown-haired boy frowned and picked the phone off its cradle, turning off the speakerphone. "Sorry, man. I wasn't listening. My paper's due tomorrow." He flinched and had to hold the phone away from his ear as the other teen screamed angrily into the speaker.

"You didn't listen to a _word_ I said?!"

"Not really, no. But go ahead and say it again, I'm listening now."

"Never mind!" Silence. Eventually the screeching beeps of a disconnected line. Put the phone back in its cradle. Stared some more at his computer screen.

It probably hadn't been the best idea to ignore Craig that way. Now he was left with the puzzling thought about how the boy had sounded quite nervous when Clyde had actually gotten around to listening to him. The sound of a single pebble bouncing off his window snapped him out of his thoughts, and the sound of several pebbles hitting his window at once made him get up and open it. Picking up a small, colorful object off the windowsill, he realized it hadn't been pebbles that had been pelted at the window. He immediately knew who it was.

"You're throwing Skittles at my window?"

"Where's your fucking ladder?"

He looked straight ahead in the direction the voice had come from to meet Craig's brown eyes about five feet away, perched on top of a tree. "You broke it, remember?"

"Why haven't you guys gotten a new one?"

"You broke it _this morning_."

"Right." The other boy pulled at the hem of his jacket before standing up and making a move towards the window. "Dude, catch me."

"You're not jumping. You'll break your arm again."

"Fuck you."

With a sigh, he realized it'd probably be a while before he finished his homework. "Craig, seriously. Climb down _carefully_ and I'll go open the door." With that, he closed the window and headed downstairs, half expecting Craig to have jumped anyways just to prove he wouldn't break his arm. What he didn't expect, however, was to open the front door and suddenly be kissed by his best friend.

It was too short and too sweet. Softer than Clyde would have expected the boy in front of him to kiss. Similar to that tentative first kiss of two middle schoolers, but still with a detectable hint of Craig-esque fervor to it. Knowing Craig like he did, he had probably spent days watching sappy movies with gay characters convinced that he could learn how to "properly" kiss a guy from them. A flood of feelings hit Clyde. Confusion, desire, curiosity. Amusement from the fact that he had definitely detected some uncharacteristically-Craig cherry chapstick that he'd rather do without. The rush was hard to describe. He stared into the brown eyes in front of him, licking his lips and trying to make sense of the situation. "What was that?"

Craig glared and punched him in the shoulder, hard. "You'd know if you'd actually listen to me, asshole!" Silence, and the boy donned a smirk that Clyde knew to mean he was planning something. "I can explain later and let you do your psychowhatchacallit shit on me if you'll be my boyfriend."

Clyde blinked once. Twice. Stared at the ground, at his socks and Craig's mismatched slip-ons. Blinked again. Smiled.

"Sure."

After that, Clyde discovered how interesting his boyfriend could make South Park. Starting in his very own bed.


End file.
